Scientists and environmental groups say government “outsourcing” of environmental monitoring in the oilsands has created a fractured system.

A new comprehensive monitoring system of the oilsands, in partnership with Ottawa, could be announced as early as January. (July 9, 2008)

By:Jennifer PagliaroStaff Reporter, Published on Sat Dec 17 2011

Government “outsourcing” of environmental monitoring in the oilsands has created a fractured system lacking scientific credibility and transparency that caters to oil industry interests, top scientists and environmental groups say.

As environmental groups’ criticism for development in the oilsands finds renewed vigour — with Kyoto abandoned and Total’s Joslyn North strip mine approved in the span of less than a week — the disjointed array of monitoring groups tasked with protecting vulnerable ecosystems simply can’t keep up.

And while the Alberta government promises plans for a new comprehensive monitoring system as early as next month, many are worried it will never match the pace of development.

The provincial government passed most of the responsibility for monitoring land, biodiversity, air and water quality in the oilsands to third-party groups as development boomed in the late ‘90s. Now, production is forecasted to more than double by 2025 — nearly 4.1 million barrels of bitumen per day.

“The Alberta government believed that they could handle all of this by outsourcing the problem to these multi-stakeholder organizations,” said Andrew Miall, a geology professor at the University of Toronto and member of two government panels on the oilsands. “They lost sight or didn’t understand the need for the kind of scientific oversight that they’re now being criticized for not having. It basically sort of blew up in their faces.”

Although there are a dozen organizations that do monitoring in the Lower Athabasca region — approximately 93,000 square kilometres in northeastern Alberta which holds 81 per cent of the province’s bitumen reserves — Miall said nearly all of them lack “top-level” scientists on staff.

Alberta Environment also does its own monitoring, but a report from a provincially-commissioned panel on monitoring says their efforts “do not appear to be comprehensive or well-organized.”

Responsibility for monitoring largely falls on the province, though federally Environment Canada focuses on cross-border air and water flows, fisheries and First Nations.

But Alberta Environment says the move toward a new comprehensive monitoring system, in partnership with Ottawa, could be announced as early as January.

“We all recognize that the world is watching, that we need to do more to demonstrate environmentally-responsible energy development in the oilsands,” Alberta Environment spokesperson Mark Cooper said. “And a good monitoring system to bring Albertans, Canadians and the world confidence in that is what we intend to do.”

“It certainly matters because of the pressure that is put by the environmental lobbies within the United States on the State Department and on the White House,” said Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

It was David Schindler, an ecology professor at the University of Alberta, who first effectively blew the horn on inadequacies in monitoring the oilsands with a 2010 Nature journal article, calling programs for waterways “sporadic and poorly designed.”

Today, Schindler blames the lack of expertise in provincial government and many of the third-party monitoring groups.

“My guess is that the monitoring program was so poor because the people were poor,” the former Alberta Environment senior scientist said. “They didn’t know what they were doing.”

Cooper said criticism of ministry scientists isn’t news to them, but isn’t correct.

“We have some very good, very well-qualified people within Alberta Environment that take their roles very, very seriously as it relates to ensuring that we do the best to protect our environment,” he said.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada have announced major cuts to staff.

“How can we be having industrial expansion . . . and less and less staff to investigate the problems?” Schindler said. “How can Canadians be insured that their ecosystems are being protected?”

While they’re usually at the centre of criticism over Canada’s “dirty” oilsands, when it comes to monitoring shortfalls critics say the oil industry is not to blame.

“There’s plenty of goodwill in the industry,” Miall said. “They want to be told clearly what they have to do by people who know what they’re talking about.”

But as details of a new system are hashed out, suspicion industry can manipulate the “polluter pay” system remains.

Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA) recently announced their funding, from Oil Sands Developers Group industry members, had been reduced to $5 million, a 15 per cent cut from 2011.

The provincial government also contributes just under $500,000 to CEMA annually.

It’s not clear whether that decision was influenced by governance changes CEMA made last year that would prevent industry members from vetoing board decisions.

“In theory I guess that could be the case,” CEMA’s executive director Glen Semenchuk said. “But, board members, when they come to sit on a board, are supposed to take their other hats off and be concerned with what’s best for the organization.”

The OSDG’s executive director Ken Chapman said the decision to decrease funding to CEMA is because of a shift in focus to a centralized monitoring system and transition to following regulations laid out by the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, currently in draft stages.

Chapman said they advised members to fund monitoring programs totalling $24 million for 2012 — an overall increase from last year.

But environmental groups are also criticizing gaps in that draft provincial plan aimed at regulating land-use and monitoring in the region over the next 10 years.

Pembina Institute’s oilsands program director Jennifer Grant said protected areas were slightly relocated between the April and August drafts to accommodate development.

The Lower Athabasca Regional Plan “does prioritize industrial development over environmental protection,” she said. “We’d want to see the location of protected areas based on the science.”

But the big-picture problem, she said, is while the region continues to wait for a more comprehensive monitoring system, development continues to chug along.

“These are things that should have happened in the early days of development,” she said. “Now we’re in this constant roll of playing catch-up.”

By the numbers

• Total barrels of bitumen in the oilsands: 1.71 trillion | Accessible with current technology: 175 billion

• Barrels of bitumen produced per day in 2005: 1.1 million | In 2010: 1.6 million | Forecasted for 2025: 4.1 million

• Investment in the oilsands in 1991: $490 million | In 2008: $20 billion | Over the next 35 years: As high as $302 billion

• Suncor Energy opened the first oilsands mine in 1967 | Currently four operating mines with activity spanning 602 square kilometres. An additional three mining projects have been approved

• Tailings ponds currently cover 176 square kilometres | The first tailings pond reclamation was in 2010 after more than 40 years of production | New data shows ponds can now be reclaimed within 10 years

• Population for Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in the Lower Athabasca: 101,238

• Jobs in the oilsands in 2010: 75,000 | Forecasted jobs based on investment: 905,000

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